Rome and Reform Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1902 Excerpt: ... The Future seems to belong to Churches long estranged from Rome. Let us contrast 1762 with 1902; in the former year France, Austria, and Spain were assailing misbelievers far inferior in number to themselves; Poland still stood unpartitioned; and Italy slumbered, well contented with the Papacy. In 1902 the Greek and the Protestant throughout the world have increased enormously, while the subjects of Rome have made no corresponding strides. The history of these last since 1650 is but a sorry affair, if compared with the history of the Latin nations for 500 years after 1017. Still the Pope takes comfort from the thought that never, in any age of the world, were his clergy so united to the Rock of Peter as now. Where is Gallicanism? it is asked; where is Jansenism? But however devoted the clergy may be, an ever-widening gap yawns between them and the laity. The two Creeds of Western Europe stand apart, the one appealing to men and to reason, the other to women and to sentiment; the one priding itself upon truthfulness, the other upon selfsacrifice. Each of them is worried by a festering sore of unbelief, and this holds good of Britain and Germany, France and Italy, all alika Socialism pushes its way in most countries, though here Britain has as yet little to dread. We know not what the future may have in store for us, but it must be plain to most men that the Almighty has dealt very gently with our land all through the last 400 years of our national life. We have never had a St. Francis, but on the other hand we have never had a Torquemada. The creed established among us for the last few ages may at least boast that she has not dragged down her votaries below their fair level; indeed, Britain has never wielded such power, not even in 1815, as she has put forth...